He Gets That From Me
by Scarlet Secret
Summary: Sarah muses on Alfie. Possible spoilers for series 3 but also speculation!


A/N: The new spoilers have been giving me the Sarah feels again and if (by some miracle) Alfie isn't her actual son then I will be GENUINELY surprised. It just seems something that's _likely_ to happen in Fellowes' World of Victorian Melodrama Tropes.

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He Gets That From Me

He shined the silver like he was born to it and with a sad sigh Sarah O'Brien acknowledged that he was. She watched him from the open doorway of the servant's hall as he sat at the table – he shouldn't be doing it here, but she had as much heart to tell him as she'd had when she told Mr Lang – surrounded by others, smiling and joking with Ivy, and ingratiating himself in ways she never could.

He had his father's smile.

She kept to the shadows for as long as she feasibly could, not wanting to be caught out, but indulging in the newfound time she now had to simply observe him, as she had seldom been able to before. Lady Grantham had been so pleased when she'd heard the name of the young man who was applying for a position, not hesitating for a second and Sarah knows full well that it's nepotism and she'd half-expected the lot downstairs to resent him for it. But they don't and she's reminded bitterly, once again, that they're better than she is. She wouldn't be so kind.

She takes her time now. Whenever she'd seen him at home, on the few occasions she'd been back to the farmhouse, she'd had to drink him up as quickly as she could, memorise every line of his face, every kind of mood he ever had in a scant few days, but now she can spend her days observing him. It's her brother's gift to her she supposes, hating the bones of him even now. It wasn't _his_ fault, not really, but if she thought about how much she hated herself she might go mad so it's easier to be angry at George instead.

Alfie has more freckles than she remembers. In the long summers of the war, with the older men away she can see him rolling up his sleeves like his father used to and trying to help. His father was bigger of course, and not just in height – although Sarah knows Alfie certainly didn't get _that_ off her side of the family – but with arms that could bear any load and strong hands ready for work. Alfie doesn't look quite right in a uniform and she knows that his father would have died on the streets rather than go into service. Alfie looks like he belongs in the fields and sunshine but at the moment he looks like one of them and she's wanted him here with her for so many years that she'll sacrifice her vision of him playing with the horses and chasing chickens.

"What're you staring at?"

She turns her neck and no other part of her body because she already knows it's Thomas and he won't take any excuse she could give so there's no point. He struts down the staircase like he bloody owns the place and she feels the bile rise up in her throat, wanting to hate him _so_ much that it almost makes her cry with the effort, but she stems it back down and merely sniffs as imperiously as ever as turns back to look into the kitchen at the young man who's still smiling and blushing at a pretty girl.

Thomas is the son she deserves.

In his face she sees the same pale skin from years of being in dark rooms, the same bitter bleak longing in the eyes – Alfie has her eyes and each time she looks at them she can't understand how no one else can see it, because how can they _not_ know! – and the same malice. There's not one bit of badness in Alfie and she knows that she played no part in making him so good and perfect.

"Nothing, it's not a crime to just stand still is it?" Her eyes flickered over his form. Thomas looks _right_ in a uniform. Straight-backed, chest out, not a crease or line to be seen and his face a perfectly immobile thing; he comes around the back of her and stands next to her, discerning her line of sight almost immediately.

"Goodness Miss O'Brien. Feeling Auntly again are we?"

She can all but taste the bitterness coming off his words, though he'd like to conceal them, because she recognises the same tones as being her own whenever she felt threatened. She knows what he's thinking – she knew he'd be like this before he did and she's stuck with the horrible fact that she knew exactly what Thomas would say and do but didn't even know how Alfie took his tea.

"You're going the right way for an 'iding."

He looks at her disdainfully but, she can't help but notice, he does shut up. He heads into the servant's hall in front of her, taking his seat and nudging hers out with his foot as he had taken to doing since precedence had seated him opposite her.

"I think you've got a guardian angel in Miss O'Brien Alfie."

The bile comes back and she wants to hit him, hurt him, tackle him like William did all those years ago, or at least be like Mr Carson and be able to tell to _shut up_. But everyone's looking at her and she knows they're expecting her to say something cutting, waiting for her to tell Alfie she doesn't care about him and he was just in her line of sight.

"I promised your father I'd keep an eye on you," she controlled her voice to perfection, placing her button box on the table in front of her despite the fact that she did all her ladyship's mending in the night when she couldn't sleep. She swears some nights she can still here Mr Lang screaming and one of these nights she's sure it's going to be Alfie and she'll hear the commotion in the hallway and bolt out like she did before and then she'll be in his room, holding him like she did Andrew Lang and able to soothe his fears like no one else ever could.

"I'm so grateful Auntie Sar-"

"Not here."

She cuts him off before he can finish. She _hates _it when he calls her that and she doesn't know whether she'll be able to control her face in front of so many people feeling the way she does, but she makes a mistake there and then when she looks up and meets his eyes and the breath catches in her throat.

Surely she must look at him differently? Surely they _must_ know, someone must have seen something, enough to guess. In some way she wants someone to guess, wants Anna or Thomas or even her ladyship to say it out loud so she can just agree and end the masquerade: she's not at all sure whether she can say the words herself.

Perhaps no one could see because the instinct was so dead in her really? She couldn't bring herself to tell him, couldn't bring herself to look in his eyes – she turned back to her mending, unfolding the silk underwear she'd put a tear in herself an hour ago – and was nothing but a phantom Aunt to him that he had never truly known.

Still, she'd gotten him a job hadn't she? And that was a start. The war was over and his _mother_ was dead and with a bit of help a bright and strong young man might do well in this new world and Sarah knew she at least had her lady on side and that gave her the edge over George now.

Her brother could claim to have raised her son but she was the one who could give him a future now. He needed her and she promised herself as she kicked Thomas' away from resting on the leg of her chair and threaded her needle, that she wouldn't fail him again.


End file.
